A collection of articles discussing the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, written by Michael James and forming an extension of his main website, www.happinessofbeing.com.

Friday, 15 August 2014

‘I’ definitely does exist, because ‘I’ is what experiences both itself and all other things, so even if all other things merely seem to exist, their seeming existence could not be experienced if ‘I’ did not actually exist to experience it. The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true, whereas the existence of anything else is not necessarily true, because nothing else experiences either its own existence or the existence of anything else, so though things other than ‘I’ do seem to exist, it is possible that they do not exist except in the experience of ‘I’.

Referring to this paragraph, a friend called Sanjay asked in a comment:

You say here: ‘The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true…’, but you have also said earlier that: ‘…because ‘I’ is what experiences both itself and all other things…’. Therefore if ‘I’ experiences both itself and all other things then it is our mind, our limited or reflected consciousness, then how can ‘I’ be necessarily true, as you have said earlier in this above paragraph. Should we not consider this ‘I’ to be our imagination, though it is our first imagination – that is, our thought-‘I’?

The aim of this paragraph that Sanjay referred to was only to establish the fact that I am, and was not to analyse what I am. It is of course necessary for us to analyse what I am, because we need to distinguish what I actually am from what I merely seem to be, but the arguments that are used to analyse what I am are different to the arguments that are used simply to establish that I am, whatever I may be. That is, the latter arguments simply establish that something that we experience as ‘I’, ourself, does definitely exist, even though this definitely existing ‘I’ may not be whatever it now seems to be.
The context in which I wrote this paragraph was when discussing the need for us to investigate and experience what actually is rather than what merely seems to be, so I was aiming to establish that the only thing that certainly exists is ‘I’, and that whatever else seems to exist does not certainly exist. I certainly exist, because if I did not exist I could not experience either myself or anything else, whether real or illusory. Other than myself (‘I’) alone, whatever else I experience could be an illusion, but the fact that I exist cannot be an illusion, because in order to experience anything, even an illusion, I must exist.

This is why I wrote: ‘The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true, whereas the existence of anything else is not necessarily true’. In order to be necessarily true, a thing must experience itself, because if it did not experience itself but were only experienced by something other than itself, it could be just an illusion experienced by that other thing. Therefore, since ‘I’ alone experiences itself, it alone is necessarily true.

However, though it is necessarily true that I am, it does not logically follow from this that it is necessarily true that I am what I now seem to be, because whatever I seem to be (that is, whatever I experience as if it were myself) could be an illusion. In fact, if I experience myself as anything other than ‘I’ alone, whatever it is that I experience as myself is certainly not what I actually am, because I cannot be anything other than ‘I’ alone. Therefore, having logically established that it is necessarily true that I am, we then need to analyse what I am.

I now experience a certain body as if it were myself, but this body is not something that would experience itself if I were not present to experience it, so it seems doubtful whether this body can be what I actually am. Now I experience myself as this body, but in dream I do not experience this body at all, though I still experience that I am. However, as in waking, in dream I do not experience myself as ‘I’ alone, but experience myself as if I were some other body, which at that time seems to be a physical body, just like this present body. Only after I have woken from a dream am I able to recognise that the seemingly physical body that I then experienced as myself was actually just a mental creation, and was therefore not really physical at all.

From our experience of dream we can draw two important conclusions. Firstly, since I experience myself in dream without experiencing the body that I experience as myself in waking, this body of the waking state cannot actually be ‘I’, because if ‘I’ and this body were numerically identical (that is, if they were not two separate things but were one and the same), I could not experience one of them without experiencing the ‘other’ one (because the ‘other’ one would not actually be ‘other’). In other words, I could not experience ‘I’ without experiencing this body if this body were what I actually am. Likewise, I cannot actually be the body that I experienced as myself in a dream, because I now experience myself without experiencing that body.

Secondly, since the body that I experienced as myself in a dream seemed to me at that time to be real and physical, and was recognised by me as being merely an illusory mental creation only after I had woken from that dream, I do not seem to have any adequate reason to suppose that this body that I now experience as myself in this present ‘waking’ state is not likewise merely an illusory mental creation. While dreaming, my dream state seemed to be a state of waking, and the body and world that I then experienced seemed to be real and physical, just as my present state now seems to be a state of waking, and the body and world that I now experience seem to be real and physical. How can I be sure, then, that this present state that now seems to be a state of waking is not actually just another dream? There does not seem to be any evidence available to me that could conclusively prove to me (or that could even show it to be probable) that this is not a dream, or that any similar state that I may experience is not a dream.

Though both of these conclusions that we can draw from our experience of dream are important, the one that concerns us most in the context of our present analysis of what I am is the first of them, namely the conclusion that I cannot be the body that I now experience as myself, because I experience myself in dream without experiencing this body. Therefore my experience that I am this body is an illusion, even though I myself cannot be an illusion.

In this present state (which seems to be a state of waking but could be just another dream) I experience myself not only as this seemingly physical body but also as a seemingly thinking, feeling and experiencing mind. However, I do not experience myself as this mind only in this present state, because in dream I experience myself as this same mind. In fact, in every state in which I experience myself as a body, I also experience myself as this mind. Though the body that I experience as myself in each state is different, the mind that I experience as myself in each such state seems to be essentially the same — even though some of its features, such as some or all of its memories, may be different.

The fact that some of the memories that I experience in a dream may not be identical to those that I now experience is not significant to our present analysis, because even in this present state of seeming waking my memories are constantly changing. Experiences or information that I could remember in the past I may now have forgotten, and new experiences and information are constantly being added to my memory, but the mind that remembers such things is the same. Just because I have now forgotten some of the things that I could remember ten years ago, or because in the meanwhile I have experienced and learnt many new things that have now been added to my memory, we would not say that my mind now is not essentially the same mind as it was ten years ago.

The same applies to other features of my mind that do or may change over time, such as my likes, dislikes, beliefs, hopes or fears, and of course my ever-changing thoughts. Just because some of these features may not be the same as they were ten, twenty or forty years ago, we would not say that my mind now is not essentially the same mind as it was at those times. Likewise, though some of its memories and other features may not be exactly the same in a dream as they are now in this present state, it would be unreasonable to say that the mind that I experience as myself in a dream is not essentially the same mind that I experience as myself in this present state.

Therefore, since I experience the same mind as myself in all the states in which I experience a body as myself, can we conclude that this mind is what I actually am? If I never experienced that I am without experiencing myself as this mind, this mind could perhaps be what I actually am, but since I am essentially unchanging (because whatever I may experience in the past, present or future, it is always the same I that is experiencing it) and since many of the features of this mind are either changing or are liable to change, this entire mind cannot be what I actually am, though perhaps some essential part of it could be what I actually am. That is, since I myself am essentially something that is single, undivided and hence absolutely simple, whereas my mind is a very complex entity, I cannot be this entire mind but could only be some part of it, if at all any part of it were what I actually am.

Before we can decide whether or not any part of this mind is what I actually am, we need to analyse it in order to determine what part of it, if any, could be what I actually am. Sri Ramana has therefore given us a summary analysis of the mind in verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār:

English translation: Thoughts alone are mind [or the mind is only thoughts]. Of all [thoughts], the thought called ‘I’ alone is the mūla [the root, base, foundation, origin, source or cause]. [Therefore] what is called mind is [essentially just this root thought] ‘I’.

In this context எண்ணங்கள் (eṇṇaṅgaḷ), which means ‘thoughts’ or ‘ideas’, denotes mental phenomena of any kind whatsoever, and therefore includes all our perceptions, conceptions, ideas, imaginations, memories, beliefs, feelings, emotions, desires, hopes, fears and so on. That is, in the sense in which Sri Ramana used the term, an எண்ணம் (eṇṇam) or thought is anything that I experience other than what I actually am.

Of all the thoughts that we experience, the root or foundation is our primal thought called ‘I’, which is our ego. All other thoughts are perpetually coming and going, whereas this root thought called ‘I’ is constant — that is, it is present as long as the mind is active (in other words, as long as any other thought is present), and it subsides only when all other thoughts have subsided, as in dreamless sleep. Whereas no other thought experiences anything — either itself or any other thought — this root thought ‘I’ experiences both itself and every other thought. In other words, it is the one thought that thinks (creates and experiences) all other thoughts. Whereas all other thoughts are objects experienced by it, this thought called ‘I’ is the one subject that experiences them all, and this is why it must be present in order for any other thought to be experienced. Therefore it alone is the essence of the mind — that is, it is what the mind essentially is.

However, this primal thought called ‘I’ (the ego) is not what I actually am, because it subsides and ceases to exist as such in sleep or whenever all other thoughts subside. Without experiencing some other thought, it cannot stand, so it never exists alone. As Sri Ramana says in the fourth and fifth paragraphs of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

[...] Of all the thoughts that appear in the mind, the thought called ‘I’ alone is the first [primal, basic, original or causal] thought. Only after this rises do other thoughts rise. Only after the first person appears do second and third persons appear; without the first person [the primal thought called ‘I’] second and third persons [other thoughts] do not exist.

Since this primal thought called ‘I’ rises, subsists and flourishes only in waking and dream, but subsides and ceases to exist in sleep (and in any other state in which all other thoughts have subsided), it cannot be what I actually am, because in sleep I exist in its absence. Not only do I exist in sleep, but I also experience my existence then, because if I did not experience my own existence and the absence of everything else in sleep, after waking I would not be aware that I had slept or that in sleep I experienced nothing other than myself — in other words, I would not be aware of sleep as a seemingly empty gap that I had experienced between successive states of waking and dream.

Since this primal thought called ‘I’ is not what I actually am, what is its relation to what I actually am, and in what way is it different to what I actually am? It obviously cannot exist independent of what I actually am, because it seems to exist only when I experience it as if it were myself, but it also cannot exist independent of other thoughts. It therefore seems to function as some sort of a link between myself and other thoughts.

As we earlier observed, this primal thought called ‘I’, which is what the mind essentially is, rises and functions only in states (such as waking and dream) in which I experience myself as a body. Without experiencing ourself as a body, we never experience ourself as a mind. Even if we could imagine ourself existing as a mind in some sort of disembodied state, it would be hard (and perhaps even impossible) to imagine being in such a state without having at least some sort of an ethereal body, because without a body of any kind whatsoever, we would not experience ourself having any location in space (either in physical space or in a purely mental space), and without any location in space we could not experience any object other than ourself (either a physical object or a purely mental object such as a thought or a feeling), because without having a separate location in which to appear, nothing would appear to be separate from ourself.

Therefore mental experience (that is, experience of things that seem to be other than ourself) seems to be predicated on the experience of ourself as some sort of a body, whether physical or ethereal. Moreover, postulating a distinction between an ethereal (sūkṣma or subtle) and a physical (sthūla or gross) body is perhaps invalid, because whatever body we currently experience as ourself always seems to be a physical body while we are experiencing it. For example, though we may now consider a body that we experienced as ourself in a dream to be non-physical (purely mental or ethereal), while we were experiencing it it seemed to us to be physical. Likewise, if our present state of seeming waking is actually only another dream, the seemingly physical body that we now experience as ourself is actually not physical but only mental or ethereal.

Since we never experience our mind without experiencing ourself as a body, Sri Ramana often described our primal thought called ‘I’ as the thought ‘I am this body’ (in which ‘this body’ refers to whatever body we currently experience as ourself, whether in waking or in dream). For example, in the first two lines of verse 2 of Āṉma-Viddai he wrote:

English translation: The thought ‘this body composed of flesh itself is I’ alone is the one thread on which [all] the various thoughts are strung [...]

Therefore our primal thought called ‘I’ (the ego) is not our pure ‘I’ alone, but our pure ‘I’ mixed with extraneous adjuncts, the first and foremost of which is a body. This is why Sri Ramana described it as a thought. Our pure ‘I’ (that is, what we really are) is not a thought, but the body and other adjuncts with which it now seems to be mixed and confused are thoughts, so the compound experience ‘I am this body’ is a thought.

Because my primal thought called ‘I’ is a confused mixture of myself (‘I’), who am conscious, and a body, which is non-conscious, he often described it as cit-jaḍa-granthi, the knot (granthi) that binds together the conscious (cit) and the non-conscious (jaḍa) as if they were one. In this confused mixture, one element is real while the other is unreal. The real element is what is conscious (cit), namely ‘I am’, whereas the unreal element is what is non-conscious (jaḍa), namely ‘this body’.

What subsides and temporarily ceases to exist in sleep is only the unreal element of this primal thought called ‘I’, namely the body and all other adjuncts that accompany it, and what remains is only its real element, namely ‘I am’. This is why we continue to experience our existence in sleep in spite of the absence of our mind and everything else.

When our pure ‘I am’ (which is what we actually are) exists alone without being mixed with any adjuncts, it does not experience anything other than itself. Even when it seems to be mixed with adjuncts, what then experiences the seeming existence of other things is not this pure ‘I am’ itself but is only the primal thought called ‘I’, which is a confused mixture of the pure ‘I’ and adjuncts. In other words, what experiences all multiplicity and otherness in waking and dream is not what we really are but is only what we then seem to be, namely our mind, which always experiences itself as ‘I am this body’ (whether the body that it currently experiences as ‘I’ happens to this present body or some other dream body).

Therefore Sanjay was correct when he wrote in his comment, ‘if ‘I’ experiences both itself and all other things then it is our mind, our limited or reflected consciousness’, but what he implied when he wrote in the next clause of that sentence, ‘then how can ‘I’ be necessarily true’, was not correct. Even though I now experience myself as this mind and therefore experience things that seem to be other than myself, it is still necessarily true that I am. What is not necessarily true is that I am this body or mind that I now seem to be.

The confusion on which Sanjay’s doubt seems to be based is one that arises when we imagine that there are actually two ‘I’s, a real ‘I’ and a false ‘I’, the latter being our mind or ego. However, this confusion is unnecessary, because there are never two ‘I’s, since I am always one and undivided. The so-called false ‘I’ (the mind or ego) is actually nothing other than the real ‘I’ seeming to be something other than what it always actually is. In other words, whether I experience myself as I actually am or as something else that I merely seem to be, I am always the same ‘I’ — the one and only ‘I’ that exists.

Our mind seems to be self-aware, but the light by which it is aware of itself is not its own light, but is the light that it borrows from ‘I’. That is, the mind ‘shines’ or is aware of itself only when ‘I’ experiences itself as ‘I am this mind’. Though ‘I’ does seem to experience itself as the mind during waking and dream, it does not experience itself as such during sleep, so ‘I’ is actually distinct from the mind, because it shines in sleep in the absence of the mind.

Referring to this he then wrote:

You have said above: ‘Though ‘I’ does seem to experience itself as the mind during waking and dream, it does not experience itself as such during sleep, so ‘I’ is actually distinct from the mind, because it shines in sleep in the absence of the mind. …’. Here you are using ‘I’ in the sense of our pure non-dual self, ‘I am’.

Therefore you equate ‘I’ both to our pure self and our mind. Should we understand it this way? Or should we understand ‘I’ only as our pure self?

In the context of Sri Ramana’s teachings, the word ‘I’ (or ‘self’) may refer either to what we really are (our real self) or to what we now seem to be (our false self), namely our mind or ego, the primal thought called ‘I’. Therefore on each occasion it is used we have to judge from the context what exactly it is referring to. Moreover, there are many occasions in which it does not refer specifically to either one or the other. For example, when Sri Ramana advises us to investigate who am I, the ‘I’ that we are to investigate seems initially to be our mind or ego, but if we investigate it sufficiently thoroughly we will find that it was never actually a mind or ego but was always only what we really are. Therefore we should not try to specify whether the ‘I’ that we should investigate is what we really are or just what we now seem to be.

The reason why this seeming ambiguity is unavoidable is that we actually experience only one ‘I’, so it is essentially the same ‘I’ that we experience whether we experience it as it actually is (which is our pure ‘I’ or real self) or as something that it merely seems to be (which is therefore an adjunct-mixed version of our pure ‘I’). That is, whether I experience myself as I actually am or as something that I merely seem to be, I am always essentially the same ‘I’, and it is always necessarily true that I am, even though I may not be what I now seem to be.

According to Sri Ramana’s experience, what I actually am is infinite and indivisible, so it alone exists and there is nothing other than it for it to experience. Therefore according to his analysis of our present experience, what experiences anything other than itself is not what I actually am but only what I seem to be (namely this mind or ego, our primal thought called ‘I’), and what I seem to be is a mixture of what I actually am and various extraneous adjuncts, the essential base of which is a body, which is itself just a thought and hence unreal.

Therefore what I actually am is neither a body nor a mind, nor is it even the essence of the mind (namely its primal thought called ‘I’, which experiences itself as ‘I am this body’), but is only the essence of the essence of the mind (namely the pure adjunct-free ‘I am’, which is the essential and only real element in the compound experience ‘I am this body’). That is, the essence of the mind is the ego (which experiences itself as ‘I am this body’), and the essence of the ego is what I actually am (which experiences itself without any adjuncts as just ‘I am’).

However, neither logically establishing that I am nor logically analysing what I am can enable us to experience what we actually are, because what engages in such logical reasoning or analysis is only our mind, which is what we now seem to be. Since we cannot reason or analyse anything without experiencing ourself as a mind, no amount of reasoning or analysis can result in our experiencing ourself as we really are. Therefore, in order to experience what I actually am, I must investigate myself by trying to focus my entire attention only on ‘I’ so that I can experience myself in complete isolation from all other things (including any activity such as reasoning or analysis).

Using our power of logical reasoning to establish that I am and to analyse what I am is a useful preliminary to self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), because by establishing that it is necessarily true that I am, whereas it is not necessarily true that anything else is (since the seeming existence of all other things may be illusory), we can convince ourself that investigating and experiencing what I actually am is more important than investigating or experiencing anything else, and because by analysing what I am we can at least conclude that I am not the body or mind that I now seem to be, and thus we can avoid investigating such adjuncts due to the false belief that they are what I actually am.

That is, once we understand clearly that I am not the body or mind that I now seem to be — nor am I even the primal thought called ‘I’ (which is both the essence of the mind and the subject that experiences everything else), because this primal thought (the ego) is a mixture of myself and adjuncts (that is, it is cit-jaḍa-granthi, the knot that binds together the conscious ‘I’ and the non-conscious adjuncts) — we will understand that what we are to investigate is only the essential conscious element in this mixture, namely the ‘I’ bereft of all adjuncts. As Sri Ramana said (as recorded in the final chapter of Maharshi’s Gospel: 2002 edition, p. 89):

[…] The ego is therefore called the cit-jaḍa-granthi. In your investigation into the source of ahaṁ-vṛtti [the ‘I’-occurrence or ego], you take the essential cit [conscious] aspect of the ego; […]

Therefore, analysing what I am will help us to focus our attention accurately on our pure adjunct-free ‘I’ alone and thereby to experience what I actually am.

42 comments:

Yes, any entity which is conscious is necessarily self-conscious, and this self-conscious entity has a possibility of limiting and identifying itself with a body, and looking at things other than itself (this body) as its thoughts or as other persons or objects.

When an entity is always self-conscious – that is, when it is self-conscious without any break, its existence is absolutely true and real. This absolute self-conscious entity can appear to us as our mind or ego. That is this mind or ego cannot have a seeming existence without its absolute and permanent self-consciousness entity as its base. Therefore by looking at or experiencing this mind or ego we can be sure that a poorna or absolute consciousness is supporting our mind or ego. Therefore our mind or ego can be a proof of our true ‘I’.

Like the existence of a flower on a plant indicates that there is a plant, and that this plant should necessarily have a root or source, similarly our each thought points towards the seeming existence of a thinker (our mind or ego), and the existence of our thinker or ego clearly points towards the existence of our true non-dual self-consciousness, ‘I’.

Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi has elaborated extensively on the three states, viz., waking state, dream state and the dreamless/deep sleep state. These are always experienced day after day. the dreamless sleep state, call it by whatever name; for instance " dull state" or a state of taking rest" or a state of nothing"---- all the same, the individual after waking recollects it. In deep sleep, nothing was cognized. Yet something definitely remained or was watching it .... that is the "Proof of the pudding is in eating". How can this everyday/ night experience be not a clear and 100% percent evidence that "I am". It is the simple truth of "Being".

Who thinks that it is a huge task is the question one needs to ask within - it will result in self attentiveness, if the investigation is thorough. This is what I learn from Bhagavan's teachings as brought out by Michael James in his articles in this blog.

In reply to the latest anonymous comment, attention is essentially awareness, so in this sense it is not something other than ourself. However, it is not just awareness, but awareness directed towards, focused on or centred on something, so in this sense it is a selective form of awareness.

What we actually are is always aware of itself, and according to the experience of Sri Ramana, it is never aware of anything else, because it alone actually exists, so there is nothing other than itself for it to be aware of. Therefore there is no need for it to be selective in what it is aware of — that is, there is no need for it to direct its awareness towards anything, or for it to focus or centre its awareness on anything.

However, when — instead of experiencing ourself as we actually are — we experience ourself as an ego (a mere thought called ‘I’), we experience the appearance of many other things, and since we cannot be aware of all of them, we need to be selective in what we are aware of. In other words, we need to centre our awareness on selected things, or direct it towards selected things, so in this sense attention comes into existence along with the ego.

However, since it is only the ego that attends to anything (that is, that is selective in what it is aware of), it alone is the root or source of attention. Therefore, though the ego and attention come into existence together, the former is the cause of the latter.

The original source from which both the ego and its attention arise, and into which they must both eventually merge, is only ourself (our real self, what we actually are). However, we are not only the source of our ego and its attention, but also their substance. That is, the ego is nothing but ourself appearing to be something other than what it actually is, and likewise attention is nothing but ourself (our pure self-awareness) appearing to be awareness of selected other things.

Attention is an instrument that we as ego have at our disposal. We can use it either to experience selected other things, or to experience only ourself. Since we can experience ourself as we really are only by experiencing ourself alone, in complete isolation from all other things, the only wise use we can make of our attention is to select to be aware of ourself alone.

Therefore can it be said that "The I-thought" is the first consequence of the selective use of attention by ego...Sometimes It looks like ego and attention is one and the same, as you truly mentioned that awareness becomes attention when tainted by ego.

The ‘I’-thought is the ego. These are just two names for ‘I’ when it is mixed and confused with adjuncts, beginning with a body. In other words, the ‘I’-thought or ego is the thought that experiences itself as ‘I am this body’, as I explain in this article.

The ego is what attends to anything, either to itself or to any other thing, so attention is the selective awareness that it has of whatever it happens to attend to. The state in which it selects to be aware only of itself is called self-attention or self-attentiveness, whereas any state in which it selects to be aware of any other thing is objective attention.

The ego comes into existence only by attending to anything other than ‘I’, and it is sustained and nourished only by attending to anything other than ‘I’. Therefore the ego and its objective attention are mutually dependent, and one cannot exist without the other.

If we investigate the ego by attending to it alone, it will subside and merge in ourself, its source and substance, and what will then remain is only pure adjunct-free self-awareness, which is what we really are. When the ego thus merges in ourself, its attention will merge with it (since its attention obviously cannot exist without it), so we (our real self) are the source and substance of both the ego and its attention.

However, though the ultimate substance of both the ego and its attention is one, and though they are mutually dependent, so long as they are manifest they seem to be two distinct things. Therefore they can be experienced as one and the same only when they have merged and lost their separate identities in ourself, their source and substance.

According to Sri Nochur Venkataraman (Swathma Sukhi book page 122), although Bhagavan let out the secret of how the ego can be annihilated at its birth place, unless one has Shradhdha and Bakthi, mere intellectual understanding of 'who am I?' will not work. In other words, Ramana Vidya, though widely known to public, would still be a secret.

Nochur follows the above statements with a story. One young saint came to Sri Ramanasramam and he was hesitant to ask some questions to Bhagavan in others' presence. An opportunity came that he was alone with Bhagavan and he said to Bhagavan that he has some questions to ask. Bhagavan, looking somwhere else without blinking, said "let everyone go". The young saint said, "except I, no one is present here". Bhagavan replied, "let that I also go".

Sir, since we are regularly reading the words ‘self-attention’ and ‘self-attentiveness’, more clarity on the word ‘attention’ was welcome.You have written:

…the ego is nothing but ourself appearing to be something other than what it actually is, and likewise attention is nothing but ourself (our pure self-awareness) appearing to be awareness of selected other things.

Yes, this makes the meaning of term ‘attention’ more clear, but still I have a question:

Do the terms ‘attention’ and ‘thought’ mean the same, or do they mean different things?

Attention to anything other than ‘I’ is a thought (a mental activity), whereas attention to ‘I’ alone causes the subsidence of all thought or mental activity.

Therefore any thought is a consequence of attention — that is, attention to anything other than ourself — and no thought can exist without attention to something other than ourself.

However, when thought is thus defined as attention to anything other than ourself, we should not imagine that anything other than ourself actually exists if we do not attend to it. Other things seem to exist only because we are aware of them, and we are aware of them because we attend to them — or in other words, because we think of them.

We generally believe that things exist even when we are not aware of them (for example, we generally believe that the world exists even when we are asleep and consequently unaware of it), but this belief is just another idea or thought. We can never verify by experience that anything exists when we do not experience it, so our belief in the existence of things that we are not currently experiencing is just a supposition — an idea that results from our thinking that those things actually exist.

Since we cannot know whether anything exists when we do not think of it or attend to it, we have good reason to suspect that whatever we think of is created by our thinking of it. The only means by which we may be able to verify whether this suspicious is correct is by experiencing the real nature of the ‘I’ that experiences things that seem to be other than itself, but until we are able to experience what this ‘I’ actually is, we at least have the assurance of Sri Ramana that everything that we experience other than ourself is a mere thought or idea, and that nothing other than ‘I’ actually exists independent of our thought of it (just as all the things we experience in a dream do not exist independent of our thought of them).

Therefore according to Sri Ramana, when we think any thought, we are not only attending to something other than ourself, but are simultaneously creating it by thinking of it. As he says in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

‘[…] Except thoughts [or ideas], there is separately no such thing as ‘world’. In sleep there are no thoughts, [and consequently] there is also no world; in waking and dream there are thoughts, [and consequently] there is also a world. Just as a spider spins out thread from within itself and again draws it back into itself, so the mind projects the world from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself. […]’

Therefore whatever we experience is actually our own self, so in this sense whatever we may be attending to and therefore experiencing, we are actually experiencing only ourself by paying attention to it. However, so long as we experience anything as being other than ‘I’ — that is, so long as we experience any otherness, duality or multiplicity — we are not experiencing ourself as we actually are. As Sri Ramana says in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

‘[...] When the mind comes out from ātma-svarūpa, the world appears. Therefore when the world appears, svarūpa does not appear [as it really is]; when svarūpa appears (shines) [as it really is], the world does not appear. [...]’

‘[...] Just as knowledge of the rope, which is the base [that underlies and supports the imaginary appearance of a snake], will not arise unless knowledge of the imaginary snake ceases, svarūpa-darśana [experience of our own real self], which is the base [that underlies and supports the imaginary appearance of this world], will not arise unless perception of the world, which is an imaginary fabrication, ceases.’

Other than svarūpa (our pure, adjunct-free ‘I’), whatever we may experience is just an illusory appearance. Though the ultimate substance of any illusory appearance (that is, what appears as that illusion) is only ourself, so long as we experience the illusory appearance we are not experiencing ourself as we actually are.

In order to experience ourself as we actually are, we must withdraw our attention from all other things by focusing it entirely on ‘I’ alone. Otherwise, whatever we may be experiencing, we are experiencing only ourself — but just as an illusory appearance, something other than what we actually are.

As it was pointed out many times, the mind is just a collection of thoughts, and all thoughts are consequences of attention to "objects" as if there is duality (when it appears that something external to mind (thoughts) exists). In practical terms attention may be something that is more easily available to scrutiny (because when it has "direction" it means that we are thinking about objects) than the "I-Thought", while both have the same ultimate origin.

Sir, thank you for your clarification. In the triputies of the thinker, thinking and thoughts, I think the ego is the thinker, our attention is the thinking and thoughts are the ideas or mental images or our imaginations. The triputies of thinker, thinking and thoughts exist together and subsides together in sleep or are destroyed together on our attaining atma-jnana.

Though these three rise and subsides together, the thinker (our ego) is the primal or root cause of our thinking (attention) and thoughts. Though all three elements of the triputies are illusory, it is only our ego which experiences the other two parts of triputies. We do not experience our true non-dual self as it is, till these three triputies our superimposed on us, but even when the triputies are at play, its ultimate base and substance is only our true non-dual self.

How does the seeming creation of this world take place? It could be somewhat as follows. When we wake up from sleep, the light of pure consciousness falls on our vasanas (which can be equated to the frames of a cinema film), and these vasanas in turn project a world picture. When our mind (the sum total of all our vasanas) is destroyed through our practice of self-attentiveness, the world picture is destroyed forever. This is atma-jnana.

In reply to the latest comment by Anonymous, I am not sure how one could scrutinise attention, because to scrutinise anything we must attend to it, and it seems to me that trying to attend to attention would be like trying to see one’s own eyes without the aid of a mirror.

What is most easily available for us to scrutinise is only ‘I’, because I am the one thing that is always present and that I am always aware of, whether or not I am experiencing anything other than myself. When I experience anything other than myself, I am experiencing myself as the thought called ‘I’ (that is, as the adjunct-mixed self-awareness ‘I am this body’), but I can always turn my attention back towards myself, away from whatever I am experiencing, and if I thereby manage to attend only to myself, I will cease to experience myself as this thought called ‘I’, and will instead experience myself as I really am.

The thought called ‘I’ (or ‘I’-thought, as it is sometimes called) is not an object but only the subject that experiences all objects, so we cannot attend to it as we would attend to an object. However, we can try to attend to it, and when we do so it will begin to subside, because it can stand only by attending to anything other than itself. When it subsides, the portion of it that subsides is all the adjuncts (such as ‘this body’) that it mistakes as itself, and when they all subside, what remains is only its real portion, ‘I am’, which is ourself — what we actually are.

Sanjay, in your latest comment you suggest that in the tripuṭī of thinker, thinking and thoughts, ‘our attention is the thinking’, but attention is actually a faculty — the ability to attend — so I think it is not quite correct to say that it ‘is the thinking’. It would be more correct to say that in this tripuṭī the thinker is the ‘I’ that attends, thinking is its act or state of attending, and thoughts are what it attends to.

However, what you say about these three rising and subsiding together, and also about the thinker (our ego) being the root cause of our thinking and thoughts (as Sri Ramana implies in verse 9 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu), is correct.

The explanation that you give about creation in your third paragraph is similar to the explanation that Sri Ramana gives in verse 6 of Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam, so your understanding in that respect is also correct.

Sri Nochur Venkataraman would often appreciate the existence of two words in Tamil: Naan and Thaan, the latter meaning in English the self, real self or real 'I' or the only 'I' that really exists. The word Thaan is the base on which Naan (ego) will rise and into which Naan will subside. In page 180 of the book Swathma Sukhi, while explaining Ulladhu Narpadhu verse 21, he raises a question, how to see Atma? Then he writes that Bhagavan himself states in Upadhesa Saram: Thaana Iruththale Thannai Dharsiththal. That is, remaining in self as self is seeing the self. He explains further that the only experience of awareness of self is the existence (Sat). To see or know that Chit, there is none separate from it. If illusion of other things gets removed, Chit will reveal itself.

In page 177 of the same book, Sri Nochur writes: Before leaving Madurai, Ramana Maharshi wrote that he is going out to see his father. Then coming to Arunachala, he saw the hill, and at that moment itself, his mind entered into self investigation of who is that I that saw rhis. No 'I' rose to say that I saw this. There was none to say that I did not see either. Only the silence of the heart remained.

I feel that having been drawn to Bhagavan's teachings thus far, we might just need to wait a little longer for Bhgavan's grace to swallow us (our ego) completely.

This is why Sri Ramana tells us to be still, and as mentioned in a recent article, Sri Sadhu Om spoke of being attention rather than paying attention. Those two are really one and the same - to be still, is to attend to stillness. This is the practice of atma-vicara.

Viswanathan, as you say, நான் (nāṉ) means ‘I’ and தான் (tāṉ) means ‘self’, but it is not correct to say, as you seem to imply in your latest comment, that நான் (nāṉ) refers only to the ego whereas தான் (tāṉ) refers only to our real self. The only difference between நான் (nāṉ) and தான் (tāṉ) is that the former always refers only to the first person (I), whereas the later may refer to the first person (myself or ourself, where ‘ourself’ is used as an inclusive form of the first person singular pronoun), the second person (yourself), a third person (himself, herself or itself) or anyone in general (oneself).

In the context of Sri Ramana’s teachings, தான் (tāṉ) generally refers to the first person, in which case it is synonymous with நான் (nāṉ). Sri Ramana often used either of these two words to refer either to our ego or to our real self, or simply to ourself in general in contexts in which they do not refer specifically either to one or the other. That is, as I explained in this article, we each experience only one ‘I’ or ‘self’, and when we experience it as it really is, it is our real self (our real நான் or தான்), whereas when we experience it mixed and confused with adjuncts as if those adjuncts were ourself, it is our ego (our seeming நான் or தான்). Therefore our ego is nothing other than our real self seeming to be something other than what it actually is.

Regarding your second paragraph, this seems to be based on what Sri Ramana wrote in the first two verses of Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam, but we should not take what he wrote there to be autobiographical in a strictly literal or chronological sense, because he had completed his self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) in a single moment in Madurai about six weeks before coming to Tiruvannamalai. Since the seer (the ego) had already become non-existent in him at that moment in Madurai, we should understand that what he wrote in verse 2 of Aṣṭakam about investigating who is the seer and seeing what remained when the seer became non-existent referred to the vicāra he had done in Madurai rather than any vicāra that he did when he came to Tiruvannamalai and saw Arunachala as a hill.

Regarding your final remark that ‘we might just need to wait a little longer for Bhagavan's grace to swallow us (our ego) completely’, so long as we attend to anything other than ‘I’ we are, so to speak, running away from Bhagavan and his grace, because he and his grace are always shining within us as ‘I’ alone. Therefore, if we want to wait for his grace to swallow us, we must attend only to ‘I’.

Yes, Steve, the understanding you express in your comment is correct. Stillness or silence is our real nature, so to be still means to be as we really are. And since we really are always self-aware — aware of nothing other than ourself alone (even though we now seem to be aware of other things) — in order to be as we really are we must be aware of nothing other than ‘I’. This, as you say, is the practice of ātma-vicāra.

While we are dreaming the world that we experience seems to be something that is separate from ourself, but after we have woken from the dream we recognise that it was actually just a creation of our mind — in other words, it was nothing but our own ideas or thoughts, and as such it was not really anything separate from ourself. The dream world was just an expansion of our mind, and our mind is just an expansion of our ego.

Likewise, according to Sri Ramana, the world that we now experience is just a creation of our mind, and hence nothing but our own ideas or thoughts, because this state of seeming waking is actually just another dream. Therefore this entire universe is just an expansion of our mind, and our mind is just an expansion of our ego. Hence in verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu he says:

‘Likewise, according to Sri Ramana, the world that we now experience is just a creation of our mind, and hence nothing but our own ideas or thoughts, because this state of seeming waking is actually just another dream. Therefore this entire universe is just an expansion of our mind, and our mind is just an expansion of our ego. Hence in verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu he says:

If the ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence; if the ego does not exist, everything does not exist. [Hence] the ego alone is everything. [...]’

We read the following three ways of equating our mind with this world:a) This world is nothing but our mind.b) The world is just a creation of our mind.c) The world is just an expansion of our mind.

Do the three statements mean the same thing? Or is there some difference in the meaning being indicated in the various above statements?

Yes, Sanjay, the three statements you refer to in your latest comment mean essentially the same. The world is just a creation of our mind, but the substance of which it is created is just mental stuff (ideas, thoughts or perceptual images), so in substance it is nothing but our mind. Being nothing but a series of ideas, the world is also just an expansion of our mind.

Sri Ramana repeatedly emphasised in Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) and elsewhere that the world is nothing but thoughts or ideas. For example, in the fourth paragraph he says:

Whenever Sri Ramana uses either the word நினைவு (niṉaivu) or எண்ணம் (eṇṇam), both of which literally mean ‘thought’ or ‘idea’, he uses them in a very broad sense to mean any type of mental phenomenon, so since the perceptual images (sights, sounds, tastes, smells and tactile sensations) that we experience as the world are just mental phenomena, he says that the world is nothing but ideas or thoughts. What he clearly implies by this is that no world exists independent of our perception of it.

Therefore, since any world that we may perceive consists only of our own thoughts, and since thoughts are nothing but our mind, being just a creation or expansion of it, any world that we perceive (whether in dream, waking or any other state) is nothing but our mind, is just a creation of our mind, and is just an expansion of our mind.

Viswanathan, in my earlier reply to you about நான் (nāṉ) not always referring only to the ego and தான் (tāṉ) not always referring only to our real self, I did not give any examples to illustrate this. There are many examples that could be given, but the following are particularly clear ones:

In the final paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?), Sri Ramana clearly uses தான் (tāṉ) to refer to the ego when he says:

And in verse 21 of Upadēśa Undiyār he clearly uses நான் (nāṉ) to refer to our real self when he says:

நான் எனும் சொல் பொருள் ஆம் அது நாளுமே. [...]

nāṉ eṉum sol poruḷ ām adu nāḷ-um-ē. [...]

‘That is at all times the import of the word called ‘I’. [...]’

Here ‘that’ (adu) refers to our real self, which is the infinite reality that he said (in the previous verse) shines forth as நான் நான் (nāṉ nāṉ), ‘I am I’. Thus in verse 21 he says emphatically that our real self is always the true import of the word நான் (nāṉ), ‘I’.

Likewise in verse 22, when saying that adjuncts such as the body and mind are not ‘I’, he says சத்தான நான் (sattāṉa nāṉ), which means ‘I, which is sat [what really exists]’, so here also நான் (nāṉ) clearly refers to what we really are and not to our ego.

Michael, your statement that the idea that things other than the Self exist despite our not thinking of them is very illuminative. We usually think that the world of waking state and our karmas get merged in the Unmanifest in a seed form and manifest again, which seems to be blatantly wrong from the perspective of the teachings of Bhabgavan dismantling many of our ingrained beliefs obstinately standing in our way towards understanding ourselves.

Sankarraman, in our experience the so-called ‘Unmanifest’ (avyakta) is just an idea, because since it is unmanifest it is obviously not experienced, so for us it exists as just an idea, belief or uncertain inference. To say that our mind, its vāsanās and all that it experiences remain in an unmanifest state in sleep is a convenient way of explaining how they reappear when we wake up, but it seems true only from the perspective of our waking experience and not from the perspective of our experience in sleep.

Moreover, such explanations are based on the assumption that our mind is real, but as Bhagavan tells us in verse 17 of Upadēśa Undiyār, if we investigate this mind we will find that it does not actually exist. What we now experience as a finite mind is actually just our infinite self. Since this mind and all that it experiences (other than ‘I’) does not actually exist even now, it is never actually either manifest or unmanifest. But since it now seems to be manifest, we can say that its unmanifest state in sleep is as real (or as unreal) as its present seemingly manifest state.

Other than ‘I’, everything that we experience or believe is just seemingly real but not actually real, so in order to liberate ourself from all that is seemingly real we must investigate and experience what this ‘I’ actually is.

So we learn that we should not attach too much significance to the question if the world is round or square - (as you say: if our experiences are seemingly real or actually real - if we are concerned with something manifest or unmanifest - if something exists only as an idea, belief or uncertain inference -). We can turn the subject upside down or turn the coin back to the front: Do not forget the main thing ! It is a dictate of good sense to learn to be what we really are. Because:We have no alternative.Or should we lifelong place our trust to the conjectures or experiences of our contemporaries ?Shall we leave the answer to that crucial question of what we really are to our fellow men ? Only hearing the subject of Self-investigation by word of mouth we cannot complain about our ignorance.To hell with our ignorance, let us not make do with second-hand-answers until hell freezes over !!!To hell with wrong assumptions !Let us find the way out of the dump.Oh Arunachala, fire of wisdom, burn burn burntill the veil of Self-forgetfulness is cremated without any residues.

Since this mind and all that it experiences (other than ‘I’) does not actually exist even now, it is never actually either manifest or unmanifest. But since it now seems to be manifest, we can say that its unmanifest state in sleep is as real (or as unreal) as its present seemingly manifest state.

This is an important clarification. We feel that we exist as this mind and body, and this ‘I am this mind and body’ idea will be destroyed on manonasa, but you have clarified here that this mind is never actually manifest or unmanifest – whether it is in our waking or dream or sleep state.

Therefore even our manonasa will actually happen only in our dream or imagination. I think this understanding is very important; otherwise we take our mind to be real, and by extension we also take our body and world to be real.

This understanding and its reflection should greatly aid our practice of self-investigation. We are trying to ‘kill’ our mind by our practice, but does this mind actually exist?

As Bhagavan says in verse 17 of Upadesa Undiyar: ‘…there is no such thing as mind…’.

Sanjay, trying to kill our mind is like trying to kill an illusory snake. We cannot ‘kill’ the snake by beating it with a stick but only by looking at it carefully and seeing that it is not actually a snake but only a rope. Likewise, we cannot ‘kill’ our mind by any means other than looking at it carefully and seeing that it is not actually a mind but only our infinite real self.

To say that manōnāśa ‘will actually happen only in our dream or imagination’ is perhaps not the best way of expressing it, because manōnāśa is the recognition that there is no dream or imagination, and never has been, because the mind that seemed to experience dreams never actually existed.

Stripped of all these mental traffics in regard to the existence of the Unmanifest, etc, the crux of self-enquiry seems to boil down to the fact of one having to understand the very mind to be unreal by resolving all thoughts to the fundamental thought ' I am the body' which is the datum of all experience, anything short of it not constituting the precursor to know the true Self, other than it everything being mere conceptualisations, a sort of a mental detour as it were.

Yes, all thoughts are experienced only by the ego, which is the fundamental thought ‘I am the body’, so their seeming existence depends entirely upon the seeming existence of this ego. But if we investigate this ego, we will find that it does not actually exist as such, because it is not the finite thinker that it now seems to be, but is just the one infinite awareness of being, ‘I am’. Thus self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) will dissolve this entire illusion that we now experience as our ego and all its thoughts (which are what constitutes this seemingly vast world).

"What shall we do with the drunken sailor, early in the morning ?". This folksong I had spontan in my ear when reading the same old story of"seeming" or "not actually existing ego", "finite thinker", "this entire illusion", "our ego and all its thoughts", "this seemingly vast world", "everything else is a mere conceptualisation or mental detour".Which cure can we get of such disease - we drunken sailors - unless self-investigation ?...Early in the morning...

I think that Sanjay's idea of the annihilation of mind happening in dream or imagination is based on the presupposition that the mind itself is unreal! and hence its destruction constitutes another thought! any thought capable of existing either by way of a dream, delusion or imagination. Looked at from that perspective what Sanjiv says seems to be correct.

Sir, I understand why you have said: To say manonasa ‘will actually happen in dream or imagination’ is perhaps not the best way of experiencing it.

As I had written, if manonasa happens in our dream or imagination, then even after manonasa our dream or imagination would have continued, because then manonasa would have been an action or event in our dream or imagination.

Our manonasa will ‘destroy’ the dreamer – that is, our ego; and when this dreamer is ‘destroyed’, it will destroy along with it all its dreams – that is, all our thoughts, this body and this world. Thereafter we will experience, as you say: there is no dream or imagination, and never has been, because the mind that seemed to experience the dreams never actually existed [as the snake never actually existed].

Therefore our final experience will always be ajata, but even when this ego, mind, body and this world seems to exist, it is a dreamlike existence, which will dissolve like morning mist on manonasa.

Yes, Steve, self-investigation is necessary only because there seems to be an ego (and hence there seems to be everything else that this ego experiences), and the one who investigates itself is only this seeming ego, but its investigation will reveal that it itself does not actually exist.

Michael,your comment of 11 September 2014 at 10:30 sheds light on the paramount significance and importance of atma-vicara and thus many questions and doubts have disappeared.So let us see whether investigation of the seeming ego will reveal the ego's own non-existence.

Articles Discussing the Philosophy and Practice of the Spiritual Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

Bhagavan Sri Ramana

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Welcome to this blog, which is an extension of my main website, Happiness of Being, and which is dedicated to discussing the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of our sadguru, Bhagavan Sri Ramana.

This blog is a growing archive of articles that I have written from time to time containing my translations of verses and other passages from the writings of Sri Ramana and his closest disciples, particularly Sri Muruganar and Sri Sadhu Om, my recordings of some of the explanations that I heard from Sri Sadhu Om, and my own musings about the philosophy, science and art of true self-knowledge as taught by Sri Ramana.

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